Newgarden’s critical error opens IndyCar title door
LEXINGTON, Ohio – Fourteenth instead of fourth. Josef Newgarden was disgusted. Disgusted with himself. Disgusted with the decision he made. Disgusted that he just made his dogged pursuit of a second NTT IndyCar Series championship approximately 100 times harder on himself.
Sitting in fourth place with less than a lap to go in Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Newgarden caught Ryan Hunter-Reay and believed he was about to turn a top-five finish into a podium. He was mistaken.
Newgarden dove to the inside of the Andretti Autosport star but banged into Hunter-Reay on the back half of an over-under maneuver.
Newgarden regretted the attempt almost immediately – as well he should have, Hunter-Reay said.
“I’m not really sure what Josef was thinking there,” said Hunter-Reay, who hung on to third despite the contact. “He tried to go around the outside, and the line through that corner is that you do a diamond and you come back to the apex, so he had to expect I was coming back at some point, and then just shoved his nose in there. I don’t know, with the championship like that, being the leader, totally baffled me.”
Confronted by the media after the race, the Team Penske star made no excuses. He didn’t defend the attack. He simply sighed deeply before starting in on what happened.
“We were having a good day, could have been a really good day, and I just forced the issue,” said Newgarden, who overcame a fuel hose problem in the pits to climb back up to fourth before the
last-lap disaster. “Low reward, high risk and we see what happens with the risk side of it. Drops us down in points. Just a silly error. Silly error to make on a day that could have ended in fourth place. It’s a shame.”
To Newgarden’s point, the mistake kicks the championship door wide open, and not just for Alexander Rossi.
However, the recently re-signed Andretti star is now in prime position to win his first championship. After overcoming what proved to be an ill-fated two-stop strategy to finish fifth, he’s now 16 points, instead of 33, back of Newgarden. Practically negligible with four races to go, Rossi said.
But Rossi is only the beginning of
Newgarden’s problems. After finishing seventh, Penske teammate and Indianapolis 500 winner Simon Pagenaud trails him by only 47 points.
Then, there’s the five-time champion. Even though Scott Dixon won Sunday’s race, Newgarden could have made the Chip Ganassi Racing star’s life a whole lot more difficult by just settling for fourth. He’d have kept the Ice Man nearly 80 points back. Now Dixon trails by just 62, far from insurmountable for a driver of Dixon’s immense talents.
Dixon, frankly, couldn’t believe his luck in that regard.
‘Kind of a bit surprised to be honest, especially in the situation that he’s had, but it happens,” Dixon said. “It happens to the best of us. We all make these mistakes.”
Rossi wouldn’t go as far as to say he was happy about Newgarden’s misfortune, but he couldn’t help but let a smile creep across his face when he was asked about it. “It’s just nice to finally have some luck on our side. It hasn’t been on our side in a big way at all,” Rossi said. “I mean, he hit the wall in Toronto, and there was a yellow flag there to save him. Indy GP I got hit from behind when he had a bad day. Obviously, COTA we were looking to win when he was nowhere, so it’s good to have it go the other way. We needed one. It’s pretty even now going into the last four races.”
The only solace Newgarden can take is that he’s been in a position like this before, and mistakes like this tend to fuel him. During his championship campaign in 2017, he made a critical error at Texas only to bounce back with a fury the likes of which IndyCar hasn’t seen since.
After he crashed at Texas, Newgarden went berserk, finishing first or second in five of the next six races, racking up wins at Toronto, Mid-Ohio and Gateway. Then, after he seemingly had the championship in the bag, he made a mistake in pit lane at the penultimate race at Watkins Glen and left the door open for Dixon. But two weeks later, he slammed the door, taking the pole at Sonoma before finishing runner-up to Pagenaud and laying claim to his first title.
Newgarden didn’t much feel like talking about his past resolve, but Dixon hasn’t forgotten the terror Newgarden can be when he’s angry.
“The unfortunate part with Josef, I think this is going to wind him up even more, and he’s going to be super strong come Pocono. Either way, I think he’s going to be the person to beat. That team is super strong right now, and we’re going to have our work cut out.”